Emissions and emotions – the new requirements
on automotive transmissions

The German version of the CTI Symposium “Automotive Transmissions” already showed that the USA, Europe and Asia together are a massive market for transmissions and transmission components. But the more than 40 speakers at the “CTI Symposium + Expo Automotive Transmission North America”, which took place in Detroit in the middle of June, illustrated how different on the one hand and how similar the markets are on the other hand. More than 220 experts of the international automotive manufacturing and supplier industry from 12 countries discussed latest developments and market perspectives.

Craig Renneker, chief Engineer at Ford Motor Company gave an excellent overview of how the automotive industry must deal with the customers expectations – the “mission impossible” as he called it. In his opinion, the industry had to meet the customer requirements for performance, green image and affordable costs/high value with various technical alternatives and powertrain systems that had to be developed concurrently. He thought that dual-clutch transmissions (DCTs) and the continuous improvement of current technologies characterised the future of Ford.

Julio Caspari, President ZF NAO and ZF Sachs Automotive of America, described the factors of success for the ultimate transmission by means of customer requirements and trends in the various world regions. He said that the model of success had to consider rational as well as subjective aspects. He concluded, however, that there was no such thing as an ultimate transmission, but that a successful market lunch was more important: “What does exist, however – as the example of Toyota's hybrid shows – is a successful way of introducing products to the market.” Furthermore, he explained how mega trends provide an orientation for strategic decisions at an early stage. He pointed out the required shift in development emphasis: “Development focuses have to make greater use of modules and standardization in order to become more flexible. They also have to make further and targeted use of only capable processes in order to increase the ability to shift site locations.”

Paul Lacy of the market research company Global Insight presented perspectives of the global market development: in his opinion, 73 millions of vehicles would be produced worldwide that year. He expected a production increase of 22 percent within the next five years – 75 percent of the increase in Asia and 21 percent on the Eastern European market. In the long term, he expected a stable percentage of 47 percent for planetary automatic transmissions worldwide, an increase of DCTs to more than 20 percent and to 15 percent for CVTs. “The role of the transmission is shifting from that of a reactive device needed to match engine and vehicle speed to that of a proactive engine management device”, said the expert. China and India could expect an increased percentage of automatic and continuously variable transmissions due to the traffic situation, but of manual 6-speed transmissions as well.  

Rolf Najork, Vice President Product Development explained the strategy Getrag-Ford Transmission Systems wanted to meet the challenges of the market with. He focused on the dual-clutch transmission: the increased environmental awareness and the requested CO2 emission reduction were two of the main reasons to launch the DCT worldwide. Najork said that North America had been interested in DCTs very much. At present, there are four different dual-clutch transmissions as well as two further transmissions for hybrid systems at GETRAG-FORD that are about to be series produced.

	The Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) was the object of Yo Usuba’s presentation, Senior Vice President of the Powertrain Engineering Division at Nissan Motor Co. He explained the different driving habits of several regions. He summed the resulting requirements on the transmissions up as follows: “Triple E” – “Emotion, Efficiency and Emission“ – was the new design philosophy, indicating what today’s developers had to consider. According to the expert, new CVTs had further advantages for engine scheduling: “New CVTs have increased the ratio range, reduced the mechanical efficiency problems and adopted innovative new shift controls.” CVTs particularly had a high potential in brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC). “But to achieve this, shift control must beat an optimum”, the expert pointed out. Finally, “Nissan sees the CVT as a key component of the ‘ultimate powertrain’”. One of the currently most discussed concepts is the Toyota new 8-speed automatic transmission. Masaharu Tanaka, Group Manager of the division Automatic Transmission Engineering at Toyota Motor Corporation, presented this “new industry benchmark”, as some experts named it, in his speech. “The new AA80 E has nearly the same size as a predecessor 6-speed AT, fewer components, a ten percent lower weight transmission case and 30 percent improved stiffness/NVH”, he said. Fuel consumption, acceleration and response time had all been significantly improved versus the Toyota 6 speed A/T. About the event The CTI-Symposium + Expo Automotive Transmission North America was the first CTI industry conference in the NAFTA region. Under the direction of thechairman Ernie DeVincent, Vice President North America Engineering of GETRAG Transmission Corporation, experts of the international automotive manufacturing and supplier industry gave reports about latest developments and market perspectives. It drew upon the experience and globally renowned reputation of the annual CTI transmission congress in Berlin, Germany. Besides the experts already mentioned above, the speakers included representatives of  BorgWarner, Ricardo, Jatco, Haldex, FEV, AVL, Magna, LuK, Shell, DaimlerChrysler and BMW. They presented best in class perspectives in the field of automatic transmissions, dual-clutch transmissions, continuously variable transmissions, transmission electronics, development tools and materials for application in passenger cars and off road vehicles as well.

15 companies mostly from the USA but as well from Europe showed their latest developments up close and personal in the well-attended, accompanying trade exhibition.
Besides the exhibition the evening event at the amazing Roush Collection in Livonia was a great opportunity to build new contacts while strolling through a very interesting variety of vehicles including racecars, research and development vehicles, classic automobiles and vintage automobiles prepared for participation in The Great Race.

On June 14, 2007 the symposium focused especially on hybrid drivetrains and transmissions as this complex development field is of major relevance in view of the requirements of the environment, high fuel prices, legislation and the market. Larry Nitz, Executive Director Hybrid Powertrain Engineering at GM, Dr. Gerhard Wagner, Group Vice President of the ZF Getriebe GmbH, Bernd Eckl, Executive Vice President for Research & Development, Marketing & Sales and Purchasing for the GETRAG Group and others discussed the current state of developments dealing with hybrid drives under the chairmanship of Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt, Executive Director of the Hybrid House of the DaimlerChrysler AG in Troy, Michigan, and Ernie DeVincent.

First of all, they talked about the marketability and technology of the hybrid drive concept currently being co-developed by GM, DaimlerChrysler and BMW. Afterwards, the speakers compared parallel hybrid drives in connection with DCTs and ATs and rated the potentials of the systems by analysing engine, transmission and electrification. Furthermore, they presented components like e-DCTs and e-axles as well as the contribution of modern simulation and test methods. A comparative analysis of energy management systems and, finally, the challenges in designing power electronics rounded the programme of presentations off.